Eden

by Korman, Keith;

“What has our master done to make them so?”

  But neither Eden nor Samson knew the answer.

  Since dawn they had been caught up in the angry crowd, taken from the garrison to the palace and now back to this stone plaza. At each place pushed and shoved and even clawed at, all because they dared follow a man they knew. Trapped as they were they could move no farther. Maryam’s face pressed against the nearest wall, streaked with dirt. She pressed her hands against it also, as though to will her body through the stone, but to no avail.

  These blocks would not let her see through them.

  And Eden saw her sag in defeat.

  Suddenly a chorus of voices cried, “He’s here! He’s here!”

  Faces swarmed the iron gate.

  Their master had entered the enclosure.

  Now the mad rabble clutched one another, some in fear, but many more in eagerness, loving the spectacle of this ragged man standing on the well-laid stones before the seat of power.

  Sentries guarded every corner, and others had arrived to witness judgment. The Prince of the hanging garden waited under an awning along with the elders of the temple. The head Roman came out through an open door. He paused for a moment to speak with the Prince of the palace. The Prince wore bright new robes, but dark circles ringed his eyes and he seemed a little shaky. The two nobles nearly touched heads, as a few words passed between them. The Prince fawned, grateful for the slightest nod from the Roman Governor. And the Governor shrugged in return, satisfied the Prince knew his place.

  The head Roman took a seat before the prisoner and glanced disparagingly at the bearded elders of the temple. They stood a few paces away and he wanted them no closer.

  Servants brought out a low footstool and placed it at the Roman’s feet. Rich, embroidered and bejeweled clothes were laid upon the stool; and Eden could see the temple elders touch each other’s hands in fear, in anticipation … and something else. Lust. The elders clucked their tongues, one or two reaching out in anguish for the vestments on the footstool. If only they could touch them, if only they could wear them, if only—

  The Roman Lord barely gave the holy men another glance, and casually signaled the servants to approach. He offered his booted feet to his slaves, and the servants dutifully unlaced his soldier’s boot, rimed with city dirt. The Roman Lord sighed as the boot came away and he rested his naked foot upon the footstool, upon the fair, embroidered robes. The temple elders gasped as one, too afraid to move.

  Then he offered his other soldier’s boot to be removed.

  And dutifully the servants kneeled, and tugged the laces.

  This then, is how it was to be, Eden realized.

  This then, was the master of the world, showing he could do what he wanted, to whomever he wanted—whether it be prince, priest, or ragged man who stood before him, waiting for his will.

  All lay beneath his feet.

  Eden heard the Roman Lord’s voice as it escaped through the barred gate:

  “Behold a man.” He paused and looked at the elders of the temple. “This one?”

  They assented, one head bobbing after the next.

  The Roman Lord grunted. “I find no fault in him.”

  The elders let up a protest, the squawk of birds.

  The Roman Lord raised his hand for silence and then addressed their master:

  “We meet again.”

  Eden wished her master to reply, even just to say, hello. But he made no sound, and the Roman Lord grew stern.

  “So I ask once more … where art thou from?”

  But their master held his tongue. No answer for the seat of judgment.

  The Roman Lord shifted his feet upon the temple vestments.

  “I have the power to hurt thee. I have the power to crucify thee. But I also have the power to release thee.”

  Eden watched the Roman Lord look to the temple elders, then to the Prince standing in the shadow of the awning. The people watching under the high stone walls seemed to shudder within themselves and pressed their bodies to the iron gates. Eden could see the Hollow Man again. As in the garden he went amongst the people as a shadow. But even in the guise of a formless stain, he was doing what he always did, floating from person to person, slouching through the crowd, slipping past this one, sidling up to another, and in each ear his shadow paused to whisper. Whispering just a single word … and Eden strained to hear this special word.

  Then it came to her, floating on dark lips. Punish.

  The shadow was urging every ear to punish the man. Whispering, punish, punish … Punish him.

  But the shadow of the man did not touch every ear, for it was important to sow discord. Many in the crowd sought mercy while others sought a reckoning. The crowd fought against itself. This was important too, that some might cry for mercy and not be heeded. That mercy should be offered, but then denied.

  How Eden could know all this she did not understand, but these complicated human thoughts flowed into her head unbidden. She saw the soldiers and the Roman Lord in the stone plaza, stern and unforgiving. She saw the temple elders, lined up like the poor caged birds that once filled the temple enclosure. She even saw the bejeweled palace Prince whose father had once murdered infants, all except her master. The Prince gazed dimly from under the awning aware of this miracle, at this grown man, now standing before them.

  All this she saw.

  Samson standing stoically, Maryam frozen in fear and clutching the littlest lamb, and even this tiny creature not daring to move lest some evil member of the crowd notice how pretty she was and take her for her fleece.

  Suddenly, Eden saw the shadow cross the pavement. Now it wrapped itself around the littlest lamb and Eden heard it whisper into the lamb’s soft ear:

  The more things get complicated, the less reliable they are. A lamb rules nothing. Not even other lambs.

  At this the littlest lamb shook her head and Maryam frantically brushed away the shadow that lay across her fleece to rid them of this awful presence. And Eden leapt into the space with the stain upon the pavement, but there was nothing there. The shadow had moved on, pouring poison into one ear and then the next. And into each ear it touched, the shadow spoke a single word. The word was “crucify.” Crucify. Crucify.

  For a moment the crowd paused, ignoring the shadow in their midst. For their rulers were offering them a role in these proceedings, a chance to decide the fate of one wretch over another. At this very moment, the choosing made a difference. The Roman Lord was asking a question of everyone within the sound of his voice. “This man or this one?” he demanded, peering across the plaza.

  The soldiers had brought out yet another prisoner, this one beaten to his knees.

  “Your King, the anointed one? Or this zealot, this rebel who plots rebellion in every cellar and sewer … Barabbas? You choose. Their fate is up to you.”

  Hair hung before the prisoner’s downcast eyes, a bandit without a future, a murderer without hope. If he had even heard the Roman Lord speak, he made no sign. The raised hand of justice bid the people choose between the men. The rebel or the king?

  The crowd muttered in answer, a confused mix of voices. Some thought the king should be spared, others the rebel, and the sound rose to a crescendo of noise. The low crowd settled on one and not the other. Wishing the notorious rebel spared, chanting his name over and over:

  “Bah-Rah-Bas—! Bah-Rah-Bas—!”

  Was there ever any doubt? The shadow had done its work too well.

  Their master would go to his last place on earth. The bandit Barabbas would go free.

  The Roman Lord dipped his hands into a bowl held by a servant, and water ran down his fingers onto the pavement. Eden watched her master. His cracked lips begged with thirst, but there was no water for him. Instead, the Roman soldiers led the wretched man out the iron gate and up the street.

  The one called Barabbas scurried from the stone plaza almost on their heels. A look of terror in his eyes, terror that he no longer had to face that word the crowd chan
ted over and over—crucify. Crucify. His eyes streamed with tears of joy that he was free, and tears of panic that somehow they would snatch his freedom from him. Freedom. Freedom. He’d been condemned along with that crazy one standing before the Roman Lord—but now he was free. And the crowd chanted, “Go now! Go! You’re free! You’re free!”

  The freed prisoner paused for a moment as some from the crowd touched his rags. Then for another moment he paused before the animals, paused and knelt to Eden, reaching out his hands to her. And for once, Eden did not want to raise her lip.

  “The Roman Lord didn’t want me,” he said to the dog. “Instead they brought the water bowl,” the man cried. “He washed his hands,” he gasped. “I’m free!”

  “Like me,” the littlest lamb said. But the crowd surrounded the prisoner and swept him down the street with cheers of acclaim and adulation, following the Romans as they marched their master out of sight. And when Eden looked back into the stone plaza the Roman Lord’s clay bowl had been dropped, broken on the pavement, and the puddle of water ran into the cracks.

  INRI

  The narrow streets were crowded and smelled of dung. Eden caught the scent she knew so well and never lost it—her master up ahead. The donkey followed, the tiny lamb trotting next and the woman last, hurrying to catch him once more. The pursuers hugged the walls and doorways so as not to be drawn back into the crowd.

  After a few turns they saw their master struggling on. The man moved slowly, step by step, for he was burdened and the crowd taunted him. His cloak askew, his shirt in tatters, and blood seemed to be leaking from every tear in the cloth. He dragged the great beam of wood they used to kill men and he shuddered every time one of the Romans touched him with the switch.

  Eden watched him step after step, holding back along the walls so as not to overtake him. Along the way the soldiers had made a crown for him of twisted briers. They placed the thorns upon his head.

  A real king now.

  His naked feet stepped in drops of his own blood fallen from his brow. Eden could smell the whiff of iron every time a drop struck the paving stones. Spilled blood always had the tang of iron in it. But as the rabble hovered beside him, foot after foot smudged the stain into the pavement and the metallic whiff disappeared so there was no telling blood from dirt.

  And something new touched Eden.

  She felt her master’s body, every joint and every sinew. The strength of her limbs faded and weakness enveloped her like that tattered cloak clinging to her master’s shoulders. Her head grew faint, her legs feeble. Her paws ached with every step. She looked fearfully at Samson to see if he felt the weakness too, and then to the littlest lamb and Maryam, but they showed nothing except the need to follow in his steps.

  Eden watched her master stumble, the large wooden beam pressed him down to the ground, and the donkey trotted forward as if to help. Yes, Samson wanted to help, the large wooden beam wouldn’t be hard for him to carry, if someone would but strap it to his back. This was what Samson was made for, to carry other’s burdens. And even the littlest lamb trotted closer too, crying, “I can help. Let me help!”

  But in that moment, many hands reached out for the gray old donkey and the pretty lamb, hands that sought to throw a rope about Samson’s neck, hands that sought to snatch the littlest lamb away. Eden was torn—follow their master as he stumbled forward or rush to Samson and the lamb?—what to do, what to do?

  A Roman boot kicked her and she yelped, then was thrown against the woman. Maryam clutched Eden’s head to her breast. And the dog watched helplessly as the crowd tried to catch the donkey, the littlest lamb hiding under his strong belly. Samson kicked and two men went down, he kicked again and three men went down. With the last kick he bolted away, and the littlest lamb scampered after him leaving five men groaning in the street. No one else chose to follow. There was a better show only a few paces away.

  Maryam clutched Eden’s sagging neck.

  “Come,” she whispered hoarsely, “we can’t give up now.”

  Above them the clouds loomed from horizon to horizon, an angry leaden sky. A few drops of rain pattered down, changing nothing.

  Everyone knew where they were going.

  Everyone knew the name of this hill.

  The Skull. For the place stood out like the crown of a bald head. Panting as they climbed, Maryam fell to her knees, scraping the dirt. She rose up with an old white shard of pottery in her fingers. No, not whitened clay … bleached bone in her hand. But bone of what creature, animal or man? She shuddered and dropped it in disgust.

  “King David, King of the Jews!” Maryam swore. She paused to catch her breath, explaining to Eden, “They say King David buried Goliath’s head in this hill.” The woman began to climb once more. “Goliath forever staring out of this ground.”

  But Eden needed no name, no story.

  The ground itself spoke to her. Bones of the dead poked from the earth, and along the climb the shreds of men hung from trees. Just as Eden had seen on every road she traveled, nameless, forgotten men unworthy of their own wooden beam. For not every criminal or common man merited a cross. Here on this Hill of the Skull, countless white shards hastily buried emerged from the dirt, but no bones that Eden cared to touch.

  Their master dragged his wooden beam over the final ruts to the crest.

  The crowd had thinned. The cripples and beggars and pickpockets had no heart to climb from the dell before the city gates, but Eden and Maryam struggled on in the soldiers’ steps.

  What of Samson and the littlest lamb? Eden suddenly wondered. The two had run off, chased by men. Had they outrun them? Would they ever meet again? The question sat in Eden’s mind but shrank each step she climbed. And at last her master and the soldiers cleared the crest and the great wooden beam reached the flat summit.

  Others had preceded them, two other prisoners with wooden beams.

  And more soldiers with picks and shovels.

  The grunts of the Legionaries filled the air as they cleaned out old post holes with their sharp spades. Her master lay on his narrow rail, arms outspread, too beaten from his stumbling path through the city to make a sound, too weary from his climb to struggle. As Eden and the woman watched they heard the clink of hammer and nail. But not through flesh. A Roman soldier, wearing no armor but his carpenter’s apron, hammered a wooden panel over their master’s head. A written word was scrawled on the plank:

  INRI.

  Eden couldn’t read. Nor could she understand the minds of others in this place of death, or even know what her master was thinking. There was no thinking, there was only pain and defeat. Maryam clutched Eden by the neck afraid to let go, and the dog felt the anguish pulsing from the woman with each pound to the spike.

  At last the soldier carpenter put down the hammer.

  “There,” he proclaimed. “Yashua, that’s your name, isn’t it? That’s what people call you, isn’t it? Joshua?” But the man did not reply. The Roman looked to the onlookers gathered on the hill’s crest, “He’s from Nazareth, no? Is no one here from Nazareth?” Again none of the onlookers answered.

  “Well, our Lord Pilate says he was of Nazareth. I think it reads better in Latin, a civilized language. IESVS NAZARENVS REX IVDÆORVM,” he said boldly. “Iesus, Nazarenus … Rex Iudaeorum.… But we can write it in Hebrew if you like. Even Greek.” The Roman soldier threw a scornful glance down at the broken man. “But just so all here can understand—Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. So says Lord Pilate.”

  As if in answer, the groans of two others perched on their wooden crossbeams filled the air, but no one paid attention. All manner of sounds lived on this hill of the skull. The clink of shield and spear, the grunts of rough men settling in for a long wait, the creak of ropes, even the slosh of water from water jars brought for everyone but the condemned.

  And there was one last crossbeam to set upright.

  With stout rope, thoroughness and care the soldiers tied their master’s arms from shoulder to elbow to the
wood; no man was allowed to peel off the cross before his time. The rope would let him hang.

  Then came the iron spikes. Two sharp cries as each spike nailed the wrists. It took many hands to lift the man, to plant the base of his rail into the waiting hole. And he cried out a third time as the base of the beam struck bottom. Mallets drove wedges into the ground and packed the dirt tight. The beam stood firm.

  The Roman soldier who had hammered the sign took off his carpenter’s apron, folded his hammer and nails into the leather and tied the thongs. He glanced up at the last prisoner, the man from Nazareth mounted on his beam:

  “This be a king? A king to all men?” the Roman carpenter scoffed. He wagged his head in scorn. “Bow to a king like him, then Rome shall rule eternal.”

  His fellow soldiers grunted in agreement.

  “If he’s all things to all men, then he’s really nothing to no one.”

  And the others laughed.

  Eden looked about for the Hollow Man; for this was the kind of thing he would say. But she sensed him nowhere on this hill. Perhaps he had finally finished with his work, and no longer needed to oversee this matter.

  Then she spotted the shape of a stain on the ground by her master’s beam, a faint shadow, thrown by the ugly, overcast sky. The beam’s shadow took on a strange shape, a form, the slow curling of a serpent, circling at the base of the post. So the Hollow Man had come at last, no longer needing a human form.

  The shadow curled about the thick wooden base of the beam, then uncurled and seemed to slither across the ground. It slithered towards the shadows of an outcropping of rock. And Eden saw the fox once more, sitting still as a stone in a narrow cleft under the outcropping. The fox looked out from the dark hole with feverish eyes. The serpent shadow slithered toward his lair and he twitched his nose in disgust, then shivered.

  As the shadow drew closer he bolted like quicksilver out of the hidey-hole, and vanished into the brush without a look back. He wanted no part of that crawling thing. The serpent shadow slithered on into the hole. Shadows met with shadows, and the serpent disappeared.